He nodded confidently.
“Exactly. That’s all I’ve been saying.”
I smiled.
He had no idea what I’d just decided.
That night, I returned to the house Thomas and I had shared for decades.
It wasn’t enormous by wealthy standards, but it was comfortable and filled with memories. PlanFinances
I placed my necklace beside Thomas’s photograph.
Then opened my laptop.
My financial dashboard contained a section labeled:
FAMILY SUPPORT.
Sixteen recurring payments appeared.
The mortgage.
Private school tuition.
Vehicle leases.
Insurance.
Country club fees.
Utilities.
Household maintenance.
And several other expenses.
For years, I’d thought of them as separate acts of kindness.
But seeing them together was unsettling.
I wasn’t helping Brandon through a temporary emergency anymore.
I was funding an entire luxury lifestyle.
A lifestyle he couldn’t maintain independently.
I opened the mortgage arrangement.
Then the club membership.
Then the vehicle agreements.
